Wired: Why Your Brain Thinks These Strawberries Are Red

Lazarus Lizard (Podarcis muralis)

I remember first seeing these lizards about fifteen years ago crawling on the rock walls while I was taking a walking through Mt. Lookout. Living in Northern Kentucky, I'd never seen the little critters before. Today, they seem to be everywhere.

In the Cincinnati area they are generally referred to as Lazarus lizards. Apparently they are not native to the area. According to Buckeye Yard & Garden Online:

"In 1951, 10-year-old George Rau Jr., step-son of Fred Lazarus III, came across some common wall lizards scurrying across rocky slopes while on a family vacation to Lake Garda in northern Italy. George smuggled a few (6 to 10 depending on the reference source) through Customs to release them at his family's home on Torrence Court located in the eastern Cincinnati suburb of Hyde Park.

Some of the European expats thrived to eventually become so numerous that Torrence Court became known as Lizard Hill. Local residents called them "Lazarus lizards" in misplaced recognition of the lizard's perceived patrons. Of course, they should have been named "George's Lizards" in honor of their true sponsor.

The lizard story may ring like local folklore; however, George Rau wrote a letter in 1989 to herpetologists at the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History detailing his role as the lizard leader. He also repeated his story in several interviews with the news media.

Research conducted by Cassandra Homan for her 2013 University of Cincinnati M.S. Thesis (see "More Information" below) added credibility to Rau's claim. She compared genetic samples collected from the Cincinnati lizards to samples taken from the reported source population in Europe and confirmed a substantial loss of genetic diversity indicating a genetic bottleneck. Her computer simulations suggested the bottleneck was likely associated with only three individuals surviving their release to become the founders of the Cincinnati populations."

Buckeye Yard & Garden Online: The Rise of Lazarus Lizards

Sucked into a story about crooked Chinese ex-mayor

A recent New York Post article stated that "Chinese authorities found more than 13 tons of gold stashed away in the basement of a former mayor’s home during a corruption investigation, according to news reports.  Police found the loot — worth hundreds of millions of dollars — in a secret cellar in the home of Zhang Qi, a onetime high ranking communist party official and former mayor of Danzhou, the Pakistani newspaper The News International reported.  And it wasn’t only gold — police also seized more than $37 billion in cash and assets."

New York Post: Cops in China find 13 tons of gold stashed in ex-mayor’s cellar

The story got me thinking. How does one hide 13 tons of gold and another $37 billion in physical cash and assets? For that matter how much space are we talking about here? What does a ton of gold look like? What does a billion dollars in bills look like? Well, let's find out.

Starting with the gold, I found this image of 80 replica gold bars representing one ton of gold.

From this we can visualize 13 tons of gold taking up about as much space as 3 or 4 washing machines. Not all that significant and easily doable for a crooked politician or villainous drug lord. 

More interesting is the $37 billion in cash and assets. We have no idea how much of the assets were in cash but even if only a small portion of it was cash it would take up a great deal of space. Here is artist Michael Marcovici's depictions of what $1 billion in $100 USD notes would look like.

Of course the bust happened in China, so it is likely the bills where not United States Dollars. Chinese banknotes are in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 Yuans. As of today it takes 7.15 Yauns to equal 1 US Dollar. So if the crooked ex-mayor was hording Yuans you have to visualize the image above times seven just to equal one billion. 

So returning to my original thought, it would take a significant amount of space to hide $37 billions in assets (actually $37 and a half since the gold was worth about half a billion dollars). The article says the police found it in a secret cellar of Zhang Qi's home. I guess it was one hell of a cellar.